Albuquerque, VLA, mountains and balloons

  Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Friday, October 10, 2008

"What shall we call it when it's finished?"
"I don't know, I'm an astronomer, don't ask me for creative input".
"How would you describe it then, as an astronomer?"
"Well, it is an array of radio telescopes. Big ones. Quite a lot of them".
"OK then, I've got it!"
And so this wonder of science and technology was dubbed the "Very Large Array", or VLA for short. Good stuff.
We had spotted it on the map before our drive northwards and saw that it was just off our route - only 50 miles from the road we would be taking. "Only 50 miles?" you ask. Well, our concept of distance has changed a bit during this road trip and a hundred mile round trip no longer sounds like a ludicrous detour to see something of interest. So as we headed to Albuquerque from White Sands, we turned off the road to hunt down the VLA. As we caught our first glimpse of one of the telescopes in the distance, we started to worry that it would not be worth the extra mileage, but as we drew near, we quickly changed our mind. It was another magical place.

VLA!

Us at the VLA

A deer at the VLA!

And perhaps the best bit was that, because it was after 16.00, you could simply let yourself into the little visitor's centre, press play on the informational film yourself, pick up your own little walking guide, wander off to have a much closer look at one of the telescopes and even stroll along a balcony where you could look into the control rooms and computer processing areas. It felt a little as if you worked there and had free run of the place. The radio telescopes themselves are each VERY LARGE, the dishes are 25m in diameter. And the array is also VERY LARGE, there are 27 of them in total and when we were there they were spaced out several miles apart across the wide flat plateau between some mountains. They are using the array to take pictures of various parts of our galaxy and those beyond by picking up the radiowaves emitted. The telescopes work together to look even further and create an even better image. The sun was just beginning to set as we wandered about admiring the pure white telescopes against the background of browning grass and dark hills. The setting was so serene. And if the technology itself does not impress you, you might appreciate the VLA's claim to fame: this is where parts of the film "Contact" with Jodie Foster were filmed.


Arriving in Albuquerque, we set out for Route 66. It is easy to find in the city, since it still runs right through the downtown area and is still lined with lots of cafés, motels and neon lights. We had already picked out a motel, the on Route 66, close to downtown but also close to "Old Town Albuquerque" where some beautiful old adobe spanish building and churches surround a cozy, leafy square.

Monterey Non-Smokers Motel on Route 66

The Monterey Non-Smokers motel (curious name) was fabulous, run by a very friendly Polish couple and offering nice big rooms, a secluded swimming pool area at the back of the plot and an all-important laundry room! This was our base for 3 days, allowing us to rest and reorganise for the bit of our trip as well as to explore some of Albuquerque and its surroundings.


Our first day was spent lazily - lounging at the pool, sorting out our washing, sitting in the cool downtown cinema and dining in an atmospheric New Mexican restaurant in Old Town. The next day, we went on North on a scenic drive through the Jemez Mountains which climb to about 3000m.

Road through the Jemez mountains

We stopped here and there to admire the views and then to take a short "hike" to a waterfall. The fresh scent of pine was everywhere and all the way in the distance we could catch a glimpse of the Sangre de Cristo mountains which were even higher, up to 4000m and already/still (?) had a small sprinkling of snow on their peaks. Our main stop was at Bandelier National Monument which is an area of both geological and cultural interest. It is one of the many sites of old American Indian settlements. A stream runs through the valley, providing a vital water source. The valley walls are made of ancient volcanic ash - a layer of ash about a mile deep was spewed by the nearby Valles volcano and over time it compacted into a rock that is quite soft and full of holes like a swiss cheese. The Indians took advantage of this, using the stone as building material and also ingeniously taking advantage of these holes and caves in the cliffs. They hollowed them out further, to make storage rooms and even homes.

Scary ladders at Bandelier NM

Mark in the cliff dwelling at Bandelier NM

You can explore some of these old cliff dwellings by climbing up variously sized ladders and peeping or crawling inside. The crowning glory of Bandelier is a cliff dwelling high, high up, on a cliff. To get there, you have to ascend a series of 3 rickety wooden ladders and squeeze along a narrow cliff path. Once up there, some 25 stories up above the valley floor, you have an amazing view and, if your thirst for adventure has not yet been quenched, you can also climb down a short ladder into a dark pit room, used as a sort of communal meeting room and weaving workshop - or something like that. Anyway, by the time you have had to make your way back down the ladders, knees shaking and palms sweating, your thirst for adventure will definitely have been satisfied! What we really needed to reinvigorate ourselves after such an adventurous day was pizza and that is what we found, in a wonderful rooftop restaurant in Santa Fe - a pretty old town on our route back which had the air of an upmarket ski resort to it (not a surprise, since in the winter it is an upmarket ski resort!).


This brings us to today, our last day in Albuquerque which we decided to devote to a visit to the annual Albuqurque balloon festival - the largest in the world (or so they claim, but always take these things with a pinch of salt, we have seen hundreds of places that sell "the world's best ribs" or offer some similar claim). Simply too exhausted from our long field trip yesterday, we quickly gave up on the idea of getting up at 5.00am so that we could go and watch the morning's mass assenscion of hot air balloons. No matter though, because there was something more intriguing on the programme and at a much more sensible time. At the end of the afternoon, the balloons would be blown up again, but this time they would remain strapped to the ground. Then, as it got dark, their burners would light them up for all to admire, for an event known - very enticingly - as the "Glowdeo" (rhymes with rodeo). Today's Glowdeo features balloons that have special shapes and as they begin to inflate the shapes start to become clear. There is a haunted house; a scarecrow that dances a little in the breeze with its neighbour, an angel; lots of different animals, including a whole Noah's ark full of them; a Darth Vadar mask protected by storm troopers and Darth Vadar himself; and a steam train that makes real choo-choo noises every now and then. You can walk about freely between the inflating balloons, watching the teams blast them with air to make them bulge and fly. The sun is setting slowly on Balloon Fiesta Field and it starts to grow darker.

Darth Vadar balloon

Glowing balloon pig

The vivid colours of the balloons become duller, but all of the shapes - more than a hundred of them, up and down the grassy park - can easily be made out. Then a count-down starts for the first time over the intercom: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5... everyone starts to join in... 4, 3, 2, 1... and the balloons light their flames, blasting the shapes with hot air and making them glow with colour. It is not perfectly simultaneous because the loudspeakers can't be heard across the whole field, but it spreads across in a wave as the balloonists take the cue from their neighbours. The glow continues for a few seconds, then the flames are powered down again - otherwise the balloons would lift clear off the ground. A couple of minutes later and the countdown starts again and again there is a blast of light and colour across the field. The darker it gets, the more spectaculour the Glowdeo becomes and the more impressed the "ohs" and "ahs" made by the tens of thousands of visitors - many of whom are in whole family groups with children that walk around with their noses in the sky a look of awe on their faces. After it has been dark for a good half hour and everyone has had the chance to walk the length and bredth of the park, the balloons start to deflate. It goes very quickly and they are immediately packed up carefully, ready for the next day's events. The evening is topped off with a firework display, then everyone heads back to their cars and joins the trail out of the park towards home. We head back to route 66 on the Western edge of town for our last night in the Poles' nonsmokers motel.




[The following day, at our motel in Gallup, we find out that the Balloon Fiesta has made the news. That morning's mass assension ended in tragedy when one of the special shape balloons (an upturned pyramid) was blown into some powerlines just outside the city, the basket catching fire and the two balloonists sent tumbling to the ground. The co-pilot was killed and the pilot in critical condition in hospital. The newsreader quickly answered the questions that was raised in both our minds - was this the first time that disaster had struck the Fiesta and would the rest of the week's events be called off? It turned out that this wasn't the first ever fatality and that accidents were reasonably common during the balloon rally (every few years) - just two years ago a balloon got tangled in a radio tower and the passengers had to climb down the tower to safety. The events would go on as scheduled, weather permitting. But the weather wasn't cooperating either that day and the evening Glowdeo was cancelled due to high winds. The forecast for the weekend wasn't any better - winds and thunder storms - so it was unlikely that the balloons would be inflating again. They had in fact called off many of the events the weekend before too, due to poor weather, so the whole balloon fiesta was a bit of a disappointment for everyone this year. We were incredibly lucky that it all went ahead the evening we were there and that there were no nasty accidents then either.]